Phil Beach Jr. emphasizes the importance of the Word of God in shaping the character of women, particularly in the context of marriage. He highlights that Jesus, as the great teacher and shepherd, guides us to embody qualities that reflect His beauty, such as holiness, submission, and a gentle spirit. The sermon draws from various scriptures, particularly in Titus and 1 Peter, to illustrate the roles and behaviors expected of women, encouraging them to model Christ-like attributes. Beach Jr. stresses that true adornment comes from within, focusing on godliness rather than outward appearances. He concludes by urging the congregation to remain anchored in the Word, allowing it to transform their lives.

search the very depths of our heart, who sees not what is outward, but what is inward. We're amazed, Lord, at his glance. We're amazed, Lord, at his ability to look into the very depths of our being. And Lord, we thank you that not only is Jesus the great prophet in our midst, but he's the great apostle, the one who has been sent by God to appear on earth as the savior of all, all men, especially those that believe. He's the great teacher, Lord, who is able to instruct us and guide us and correct us and show us the way day by day. And of course, he's the great evangelist whose heart is to seek and to save that which is lost, whose heart is to find the lost sheep of the children of Israel, whose heart is to reveal the plan of salvation to a lost and dying world. And then, of course, Lord, you are in our midst as the great pastor, the great shepherd. And as the great shepherd, Lord, you care for us. You tend to our needs. You guide us and lead us. Your rod and your staff, they comfort us. Your rod of correction, your staff of direction, Lord. We're amazed, Lord. We pray, God, that you'll open our eyes to see more and more the beauty of our Savior and that you'll continue, Lord, to draw us closer to you. Now, Father, I pray for these next few moments as we go into your word that you would speak to every one of us and that you would use your word, Lord, to impart into us thy life. You would correct us and adjust us and work deeper repentance in our life, Lord, over those areas in our lives that are not pleasing to you, that are not in accord with the moral righteousness that is in your son, Lord, that you will help our walk to line up with our position so that not only do we stand righteous in your eyes, but we are practicing righteousness. As your word says, Lord, he that practices righteousness is born of God. And so help us, Lord, in these areas that only you yourself, Lord, can work on and you yourself, Lord, can perfect. We look to you today, Lord, to do this through the power of your son. We pray, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Please turn your Bibles, if you would, to Titus chapter 2. I'm going to read a number of scriptures and I'd like for us to just pray that God will speak to our hearts. These particular scriptures are scriptures that address women, particularly wives. These scriptures reveal to us what Jesus wants to work in a wife, in a woman who is married. But we'll also discover that the qualities that we're going to be looking at are not only qualities that should exclusively be in a wife, but they are qualities that represent and speak of the beauties that we see in Jesus. And therefore, they are not only to be desired by a woman, but they are to be desired by all of us so that in the proper place they can be functioning. Now, Lord, I pray that you will help us as we go into your word to receive from your Holy Spirit. Let me just say some things that are upon my heart, please. Before we go into these scriptures, always remember that the Holy Spirit works together with the Word of God and the Word of God works together with the Holy Spirit. Always remember, dear ones, that Jesus Christ, who was the Word of God himself, who was given the Holy Spirit without measure. He had the Spirit without measure. Yet we find that his ministry was continuously revealing the Word of God. When he battled the enemy in the wilderness, he spoke the Word of God. And so it was the Spirit of God in him using the Word of God that was written and recorded and together the Spirit and the Word were working. And it is so important that we continue to grow in our understanding that the great God that we love, that we serve, that loves us, that has come to serve us and take our sins, that great God is revealed to us accurately and infallibly in his Word. There is no safety that you or I have except we abide in the Word of God. Your word and my word is tainted. With sin, it's tainted with an imperfect understanding and knowledge of God. But this word here is refined seven times. And you know what that indicates? A refining of seven times indicates pure, the absence of all dross, the absence of all error, the absence of all darkness. And so you and I have a reliable anchor that holds us to truth. Now, while we do have the Spirit of truth in us and thank God for the Spirit of truth, amen, yet because we are human, the Spirit of truth works not with our own words but with the Word of God. The Spirit of truth is infallible. The Word of God is infallible. And so therefore, the Spirit of God in us is going to draw us to the infallible Word of God so that the Word of God is imparted to us and Christ Himself is revealed through the Word of God. And so one of the outstanding characteristics that we find in the Old and New Testament with men who were filled with the Spirit is they had an insatiable hunger for what? The Word of God. Read Psalm 119. Isn't that a wonderful Psalm? A hundred and seventy-six verses and every verse is about what? Men are strangely attracted to the Word of God when they have an encounter with the Spirit of God. There is such a preoccupation today with words that come from men, isn't there? Television programs, comedies, radio hosts, God knows. I don't desire to be critical, but honest and truthful this morning. Most radio hosts that I listen to, they have an infatuation with themselves. They love to hear their voice. They love to hear their opinions. So many times they're egomaniacs. Egomaniacs. They just love to talk about what they think. If we have a good measure of the Holy Spirit, it'll trouble us to listen. It'll trouble us to immerse ourself in such things. The entertainment world is all about who? Men. Man. His glory. His gifts. His looks. It's all about growing in popularity among men. Prestige among men. Power among men. The Holy Spirit speaks much of Christ. The Holy Spirit speaks much of the Word of God. And the Holy Spirit speaks very little about anything else. Did you know that? When the Holy Ghost fell upon Jesus Christ, what did God say? This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. When the Holy Ghost came upon Mary, what did she do? Prophesied about who? The Son of God. When the Holy Ghost came upon John, what did he do? Prophesied about Jesus. The Spirit of God is constantly, constantly, constantly speaking of the glories of Jesus Christ, revealing them to us, John 14-17. And so I want to encourage you, brothers and sisters, as we continue to discover the beauties of Jesus, to pray that the Holy Spirit will continuously turn your hearts to the Word of God, to the Word of God, to the Word of God. Thank God for your experiences. Thank God for the personal encounters that you have with God. But don't camp there. Go back to the Word. Go back to the Word and feed on the Word because the Word will perfect our knowledge of God day by day as we stay in it. Now, let's look at the Word now and let's let God speak to us. Titus 2. Now, these are words that are being spoken by the Apostle to Titus who was an elder in the church. And this is what the Apostle was being led of the Holy Spirit to tell him. But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine, sound teaching. So immediately, the Holy Spirit is expressing His burden to Titus and expecting Titus to communicate this burden to the church. And the burden of the Holy Spirit here is speak sound doctrine. Now, sound means that which is healthy, that which is health giving, that which communicates sound, healthy, refreshing. It's the doctrine that comes from the Word of God. It's the Word of God itself. That's sound doctrine. Recently, I was led by the Lord to expose myself for quite a time to a number of ministers. And I listened and listened and listened and listened and listened and I didn't hear any word of God. I heard a lot of men talking about their ministries. I heard a lot of men talking about the great things that God's doing through them. I heard a lot of talk about money. I heard a lot of talk about visions and dreams. I heard a lot of talk about personal experiences. But not once did I see one of these men crack open the Word of God, bow his heart and say, Oh God, speak to us through Thy Word. Correct us, reprove us, instruct us, teach us, reveal to us the beauties of Jesus Christ. Not once did I hear it. And yet I saw thousands of people clap and raise their hands and shout and yell. And the Lord wasn't there. Sound doctrine. Sound doctrine. Speak the things which become sound doctrine. That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. Verse 3, The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness. Now you see here, the Holy Spirit will teach us that He's concerned about our behavior. See right there, the Word of God. The Holy Spirit is concerned about our behavior. Now in particular, He's talking about the aged women. And so the Holy Spirit is focusing here on the qualities that Christ longs to etch into the heart of an aged woman. That her behavior should be that which reflects holiness. Or a holy woman. A holy woman is a woman set apart. The word holy means to set apart. It means to sanctify. It means to devote something to the exclusive use of. If I devote this bottle of water to my son Philip, I'm devoting it to him. I'm setting it aside. This is for you, Philip. Holy women. And so it is important that an older woman be devoted to Christ. Not false accusers. Number two, an older woman should never be a false accuser. An older woman should never accuse anyone falsely. An older woman should never get on the phone and accuse anyone of something falsely. Therefore, she should not lend her ear to gossip. She should not lend her ear to any form of slander. An older woman should be devoted to Christ and never should a word come out of her mouth that would suggest in any shape or form a false accusation against anyone. Now, I doubt very much that this admonition here is exclusively for older women. How many feel the Holy Spirit would want to take this and apply it to our hearts? No false accusations. No talking about anybody and accusing them of anything unless you know what you're talking about. You see someone come in and they have on a beautiful ring and you go home and you say, boy, they're gaudy people. Who do they think they are? They're probably materialistic. How do you know what's in their heart? How do you know that ring wasn't their great-great-great-grandmother's and that it had nothing to do with anything in their heart? It was a gift given to them. A false accuser is someone who makes a judgment about another person that's not based on truth. And the Holy Spirit will teach us not to be false accusers. Not giving too much wine. It is inappropriate for an older woman to be given to excessive amounts of wine. We're dealing with a culture who drank wine. We're dealing with a culture who drank wine. But the Holy Spirit and the Word of God specifically says, avoid excess amounts. Don't look to wine or alcohol as a means to become sedated so that you can become drunk. Don't do it. Now for hours, I heard these ministers get up and talk about everything under the sun except the Word of God. And so my question was, where was the Holy Spirit's inspiration? Does the Holy Spirit inspire us to make much of ourselves? Does the Holy Spirit inspire us to make much of ourselves? No. The Holy Spirit inspires us to make much of Christ. The Holy Spirit inspires us to make much of His glory, much of His work. The Holy Spirit inspires us to make much of the Word of God so that by it we are brought into the very presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. Teachers of good things. Now the good things that the Lord is referring to are in the following few verses. Good things that they may teach the young women to be sober. Aged women. Older women. Now we're not going to put an age here. We're just going to leave it the way it is. Aged women should be... Listen, if they are following the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, if they're being led along the path of maturity, every older woman should be teaching younger women. Now, the teaching here is not necessarily a formal thing where you have classes and they're coming to your classes. It's a modeling. They should be modeling to younger women. What is it that they should be modeling to younger women? To be sober. Does anyone have another translation? Sober. Discreet. Excellent. Discreet. Reverent in their behavior. What a wonderful thing for an older woman to model to a younger woman. Whether it's a young married woman or if it's a younger single girl. We should look at older women who have been in the faith for many years and we should see someone who practices discretion. Someone who practices behavior that reverences God. Younger women should look at older women and say, my, I want to be like that. Chase. Pure. Pure in mind. Pure in thought. Pure in speech. The Bible says that we shouldn't say things that have a polluting effect. Let our speech be without pollution. Let our speech be without guile. Let our speech minister grace to the hearers. Keepers at home. Managers at home. Managing the home. Homekeepers. What a lovely calling an older woman is to model to the younger women. Be a keeper at home. Learn to manage your home. Learn to love your home. Learn to pray over your home. Learn to pray over your children. Learn to make your home a place of pleasantness. A place where the Lord is reigning. A place where the things of God. A place where there's an atmosphere of peace and tranquility. A place where there's prayer. A place where there's fellowship. A place where God's Word is honored. Keepers at home. Good. Obedient to their own husbands. Older women should be teaching the younger women what it is to be obedient to their husbands. What it is to demonstrate a submissive spirit. Not a feisty spirit. Not a fighting spirit. Not a rebellious spirit. Ladies ought not to be going around flapping their mouth talking against their husbands in the ears of other men or women. And it happens. And it's not right. A lot of damage takes place. Women need to learn to be obedient to their husbands. And learn to love their husbands. That the Word of God be not blasphemed. 1 Peter chapter 3. 1 Peter chapter 3. Likewise ye wives. Now here's another exhortation for women. For wives. You see brothers and sisters what we have to do is we have to learn together and also individually. What we have to do is we have to learn to go to God's Word and let God's Word speak to us. Take for example the topic of women like we're doing now. The Lord put this on my heart and I began to pray and what I did is I simply went to my concordance and I went into the New Testament and I found all the scriptures that address women. And I wrote them all down and I read through them and prayed through them and I was able then by God's help to gather together all the information that God says about it and then begin to develop an understanding of God's heart regarding women. That's how we grow in our knowledge of God. We go to the Word of God and we let God speak to us and then in a broken, humble, contrite heart we pray, O God, now take this that's in Your Word and make it true in my life. Make it true in the lives of the women in our church. Make it true Lord. And then that's how the Word of God becomes real and living in our heart. All right, let's go to chapter 3, 1 Peter. Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands. Now the word likewise there is connected to verse 18 of chapter 2 where Peter's talking about servants be subject to your masters. And Peter is talking about the need to be submissive. And honoring your masters. Talking about servant and masters here. And then he says likewise. So he connects chapter 3, verse 1 with verse 18 of chapter 2. Not suggesting that a wife is her husband's servant and the husband is a master. Not suggesting that, but drawing from the principle of servant and master relationship, the submissiveness that's there. Drawing from that principle and using it and applying it in the marriage relationship. Wives, you should have a submissive spirit toward your husband just like a servant is to have a submissive attitude toward his master. Now what will the Holy Spirit do when He begins to fill us and begins to give us visions of Christ and begins to delight our hearts with what Jesus has done? He will fulfill the Word of God in our life. He'll begin to give us submissive spirits. See how they have to go together? Wives, be in subjection. Not oppressed. We know the abuse of this. We see it in third world nations. We see it under the religion of Islam where a woman's dignity is destroyed. Her worth is mocked. She's beaten by her husband. The movie, what's the name of it? Not Without My Daughter. How many have seen that? Not Without My Daughter. About a woman who was married to an Iranian and they had a chance to go back to Iraq. Iran. And when they went back, he said, we're not going back to America. We're staying here. And he started to beat her husband and the wives would say, oh, it's okay. They all do that. This is just the way it is. This is not Peter's thought. This is not the Holy Spirit's thought. The thought here is one of submission in love. Submission as the church submits to Christ. It's a beautiful picture here when it's caught and understood. The reason why Peter is saying is so that if any don't obey the Word, they also may without the Word be won by the conversation of the wives. In other words, why is Peter saying this? If your husband is not obedient to the Word and either he's an unbeliever or he's a Christian, but he's not living right, then you let him see the Gospel in your actions so that even if he doesn't listen to the Word, he'll be convinced by your actions. That's what the Holy Spirit is saying. He's saying, model Christ to your husband. Wash his feet. Wash his feet. Serve him. Find out what pleases him. And serve him and love him. Let him see. Not hear how many wives I have talked to over the years who begin to talk to me about their husbands and how they're not right. And I don't see a desire to serve. I see anger and hostility and I'm about to tell them to hit the road. That's not the heart of Christ. The heart of Christ is, alright, they won't listen to the Word, then let them see it in action. Let them see it in action. They might be won by your conversation or your behavior. While they behold your chase conversation coupled with fear. Who's adorning? Now listen, who's adorning? Let it not be. Or another translation, who's adorning? Let it not exclusively be. The idea here now is they're talking about adorning. They're talking about garments that you wear. And the Holy Spirit is teaching, wives, adorn yourself. Not simply with outward adorning. The planting of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of apparel. Women, listen carefully. Wives, young girls, listen. Don't let your adorning, don't let your clothing, don't let the thing that you want to clothe yourself simply be outward. But let it be the hidden, verse 4, man of the heart. And that which is not corruptible, even the ornament or even the garments of a meek and quiet spirit, a meek and gentle spirit, which is of great value in the sight of God. Do you see that? You see that, ladies? What are we aspiring after? Meekness, a quiet spirit, a gentle spirit, a loving spirit. Now that is in great, that is great value in the eyes of God, but it's not of great value in the eyes of the world, is it? If we're not careful, women, women can sit at a wrong table and eat wrong food. I'm not talking about McDonald's or Burger King. I'm talking about the spirit of this world that would teach a woman to not be quiet and meek, but like Jezebel, want to control, want to manipulate the husband. Women, beware. One more verse. First, let's finish this. For after this manner, in the old time, the holy women also who trusted in God adorned themselves. In other words, the holy women of old dressed themselves with a meek and quiet spirit and did not focus all of their attention on outward beauty. Although I'm quite sure that Rachel was very beautiful and Sarah was very beautiful and they had their moments when they dressed themselves and they looked very beautiful. That's fine. The Bible's not saying you can't do that. It's saying don't let that be the focus of your beauty. Adorn themselves being in subjection to their own husbands, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord or Master, whose daughters you are as long as you do well and are not afraid with any amazement. One more Scripture. Genesis 3. We'll go back to the very beginning and we'll understand here. Genesis 3. This is what God said in the very beginning. Genesis 3.16 Unto the woman, He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy childbirth and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children and thy desire. Now it says in the King James, shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee. Another translation says, and thy desire shall be subject. Oh, please listen. Thy desire shall be subject to thy husband. Why is the Holy Spirit saying this? Because what happened to Eve? She had a desire. She was tempted by the devil. And instead of subjecting that desire to her husband and together praying, she reached and ate. She fell, pray, to the deception of the devil because she failed to yield her desire to her husband. And that's the whole plan of safety here that God is saying. So thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee or he shall oversee. Oversee. Now that's God's plan. That's God's thought. 1 Timothy. We're closing with this. 1 Timothy. Now this is how we learn to pray. Women, do you know what to pray about? This is a whole lot you can pray about now, isn't it? See how God's Word fuels your heart with prayers? Now, do any of you need to worry about whether this is the will of God or not? You know how sometimes you say, I wonder what I should pray? Is it the will of God? Well, all this is right from the Word. Any subject you want to know about, you can find it in the Word and then pray. 1 Timothy chapter 3. Oh my. OK, I'm sorry. Chapter 2. 1 Timothy chapter 2. Verse 9. In like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness, another translation, modestly and indiscreet. Discreetly, I mean. I'm sorry. And sobriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly array. The same spirit here now. Don't make your beauty simply be in the outward. But that which becometh women professing godliness with good works. Now watch. Let the woman. Now, a better translation, and I've researched this and feel comfortable with this. A better translation is rather than let the woman, it's let the wife. In the context, this word should be wife because it's husband and wife that's being dealt with here. So it's let the wife learn in subjection with all silence. I do not allow a wife to teach or usurp authority over the man or over her husband. See the same spirit here again. Paul's trying to deal with this. Let's have this submissive, quiet, gentle spirit. Not to usurp authority over the husband, but to be in silence or stillness. That is not to create a sense of disharmony by being impetuous and wanting to initiate and rule over. Learn to be still and under, not suppressing, but divine order. Now watch. For Adam was first formed, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Why? Because she didn't give her desire to her husband when she was tempted by the devil. She just acted on it. She acted on it. Notwithstanding, watch. She shall be saved in childbearing. What does that mean? She shall be saved from what? She shall be saved from this independent spirit in childbearing. That is by getting married and submitting to her husband, bearing children, and learning the place of submission. She'll be saved from this sin that is that beguiled Eve. That's what it's talking about here, I believe, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. So there you have it, brothers and sisters. Just a little bit. We could have gone so deeply into each one of those words and dissected the meaning, but this is just to help wet the appetite. Let's bow our hearts and pray. We've run out of time, but let's pray. Father, thank you so much for the encouragement today, for the saints sharing in the different words, Lord, and for the Word of God, Lord, and just seeing a little bit here what a woman is to look like. Oh, Lord, how we're so hungry to go into Your Word and to just let Your Word speak to us. And now I pray, Lord, in the power of Jesus Christ, that each one of us could receive this Word and let it minister to us. Let it change us and let it help us to be more and more like Your Son, Jesus Christ. Help us, Lord, to find truth that sets us free in Your Word. We pray, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. So I want to encourage everyone, stay in the Word. Let the Word speak to you. On your knees and you'll find God will always take His Word and minister life to us as we have a humble and a broken spirit. And another thing that's really good about the Word is this. It's never my opinion. Now, let's say a few ladies got a little upset today. They felt a little ruffled in their feathers. And they go home and they say, you know, that Phil? Wrong. Wrong. You know that Phil? Wrong. What did I tell you that was my opinion? Not a word. I just read it from the Word of God. See, so that's another thing about the Word of God. And we're going to get into this later on. The Word of God is our safety and it keeps us from exalting our own opinions about ideas. And it's just level ground as we search together and let God speak to us. God bless you.